For these kinds of stories, Kat tells me I should always start with the end - so to start: Maggie is OK and safe at home with us.

We had a very scary incident with Maggie this past Thursday, and while it's a story we don't really want to share, we feel we need to share the bad as well as the good on the blog. As we've blogged in the past, we like to take her out to the local middle school which has a fenced in area and they don't mind dogs on non-school days. This is the park where Maggie met her friends River, Chip and Holly (the other dog from the running video).

The one problem with this park is that it's 99% fenced in, and there are two entranceways that are always open. The first few times we went there, this was a major point of concern, but Maggie never made a move toward those gates and always stuck within 20 feet or so of us no matter where we went in the park. So we became used to the fact that Maggie was always perfect and stuck close to us. We've both taken Maggie to the park by ourselves and it's always been fine - until Thursday.

Kat called me to say her plane back to Chicago was pulling away and that she'd be home in a few hours. Maggie and I were just walking into the park when we said goodbye on the phone. I took Maggie off of the leash like always, but this time she started moving back toward the entranceway.

I still didn't really think she'd go through, but I was nervous that she was even walking that way. I didn't want to startle her by coming after her, so I took a few steps further into the park using words she understands to follow us like "let's go!". Maggie kept walking further away, and eventually went outside the park.

I had to go after her now so I ran out the gate and called after her. Maggie was doing her fast walk away from me and heading north. I ran a little bit, and as I got close Maggie went into full on run mode. Of course, I had on my sandals too, so the clomp-clomp of those couldn't have helped. I don't know what was going through her head, if it started out as play or what, but it quickly turned to panic for both of us.

This is very scary and I'll skip the details. Suffice it to say, Maggie ran across many streets and I could never get close to grabbing her. This total chase lasted probably 30-45 minutes although it seemed like an eternity, through about a mile and half of streets. At one point she ran fast enough that I lost sight of her. Between seeing Maggie run through traffic, and just losing her altogether, I can't describe the feeling of complete desperation, powerlessness and hopelessness. I really thought we'd lost her.

Fortunately, some complete strangers jumped in and saved the day. I never, ever would have caught her on my own. Three or four guys, who didn't know each other either, all jumped in to help pin her down. One guy finally got hold of her collar and I got the leash on her to take her home. I was so tired, relieved and shaken that I didn't really properly thank the guys who helped or even get a good look at them. I wish now there was a way to properly thank them, but I have no idea who they are.

Maggie was exhausted and bleeding - I thought from one paw. I got her back home, some water, some ice packs and then looked at her paws. She'd torn the top layer off of the large pad on all four paws. I took her to the emergency vet on Clybourn. They cleaned her up, gave her a shot of antibiotics and for the pain and gave prescription pills for both as well.

They also advised that we go to Petco and buy some booties for her. They said normally they'd bandage a paw in that condition, but since it was all four that wasn't going to work well.
Kat got home from the airport a little after we got home from the emergency vet and buying her booties, and I filled her in on what happened - it wasn't quite the happy homecoming she'd envisioned, but at least Maggie was at home.

We feel really bad for Maggie and that she's injured, but we're also incredibly thankful and lucky that nothing worse happened to her and that we have her back.

She's been doing well. She is now used to her boots and walking pretty well in them. The first couple days she was incredibly awkward in the boots, her feet were still raw, and she was sore from her run. Her feet are looking much better now, having turned back to black and are already looking tougher. Her back-left paw was the worst and still is lagging behind the others but not by much. She still has at least the rest of this week in the boots.

We're in Michigan all week and we'd hoped to do all sorts of fun stuff with her, but all of that is off the table while she recovers. There's plenty of time for that though in the future and at least she's safe and sound!

We've learned our lesson. Mags is only off leash now at 100% enclosed places (the dog park in Michigan City is 100% enclosed, so we have that). And we have to remember that we still don't truly know her and as "perfect" as she is most of the time, she can still act unpredictably. 99% of the time she'd probably be fine, but we can't take that chance that she'll run again and I don't believe we'll get so lucky again.

Not to be dramatic, but this was the scariest moment in my life thinking we'd lost Maggie or worse. We can't imagine anything happening to her. Next week will be her 5th month with us and we can't even remember what it was like to not have Maggie in our life.